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AmblesideOnline: Toward a Definition of a Living Book

by Colleen Manning

One of my goals as a parent is to pass on to my children a love for
reading and for learning. When I began educating our daughters at home,
I searched for great books to read with them. Then I found an
article about Charlotte Mason, who originated a term for the kind of
books children need: living books. In the article, these books
were described as "whole books," firsthand sources, classics, books
that display "imagination, originality, and the 'human touch.'" 1

My curiosity led me to investigate Miss Mason's philosophy in more
detail. In our home school, I began implementing her methods, such as
reading from good books and asking the children to narrate to me what
they learned. Yet one question was not easily answered: which books are
the living books, the best books?

Charlotte Mason did not give us a list of the hundred best books, nor
did she compose a checklist of what to look for in a living book. She
did drop clues for the careful reader, however. This passage contains
some nuggets of truth about the best books.

"For the children? They must grow up
upon the best . . . There is never a time
when they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales,
well
told. Let Blake's 'Songs of Innocence' represent their standard in
poetry
DeFoe and Stevenson, in prose; and we shall train a race of
readers who will
demand literature--that is, the fit and beautiful expression of
inspiring ideas
and pictures of life." 2

I see two marks of living books in that passage. First, she emphasized
"the fit and beautiful expression." The tales are "well put" and "well
told." These words describe the mark of high literary quality.

When we think of books that meet this description, we might think
primarily of fiction. I have seen several definitions stating that
living books are in "story form." Let's remember, however, that Miss
Mason also insisted on literary quality in the nonfiction books used in
her schools, books on history, geography, nature, religion or science. 3

Secondly, notice that these books contain "worthy thoughts," "inspiring
tales," and "inspiring ideas and pictures of life." The second mark of
a living book is found in the content--the ideas of the book. Ideas are
sparks of truth passed from a great thinker to another mind.

Charlotte Mason taught that these ideas are food for the child's mind.

"Education is a life. That life is
sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin,
and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them
to one another,
whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical
symphony;
but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain
his body with food." 4

I was inspired by reading her words, but my understanding of what she
meant by "ideas" was vague and incomplete. For a time, I thought that
any well-written book that showed what life was like during a
historical period or that emphasized righteous character must contain
the ideas my children needed. The result? They read many inspiring
tales, but gained very little knowledge.

Then, I read A Philosophy of Education from cover to cover. In this
book, Miss Mason presented knowledge as the true motivation for
education. 5
In the second half of the book, she used the need of human beings for
knowledge as the rationale for her entire curriculum.

"As I have said, knowledge, that is,
roughly, ideas clothed upon with facts, is
the proper pabulum for mind. This food a child requires in large
quantities and
in great variety. The wide syllabus I have in view is
intended in every point to
meet some particular demand of the mind." 6

As I read her descriptions of that wide syllabus, I realized that the
food needed by my children was knowledge--not a haphazard accumulation
of any knowledge that interested them, but a disciplined, well-planned
intake of "the enormous field of knowledge to which a child ought to be
introduced in right of his human nature." 7 I began to look
for living books that were not only of high literary quality, but that
also communicated important knowledge about a given subject matter.
This led to greater variety in our reading--more nonfiction, especially
biography, science, nature and geography.

Besides giving us the two marks of living books, Charlotte Mason also
wrote about two results caused by a living book. First, the response of
children will tell us much about a book. Children will show a delight,
an interest in a living book. This delight will arise from the
experience of receiving those sparks of truth from the author. 8

One caution is in order when looking at a child's response to a book:
delight or interest isn't always stimulated by living ideas. In other
words, what a child likes isn't always what he needs. Miss Mason
pointed out, "That children like feeble and tedious...story books, does
not at all prove that these are wholesome food; they like lollipops but
cannot live upon them." 9

The second result will be seen if the book has made a lasting impact on
the child's mind: he will be able to tell you clearly what he has read.
Charlotte called this "narration." This is a natural result of a
living book full of living knowledge. Miss Mason's students were able
to narrate at examination time about a book they had read. If a large
number of students could not, she concluded that the book was "the
wrong book." 10

As parents and educators, we have a responsibility to find books for
our students that will both delight and make lasting impressions on
their minds. As Charlotte Mason wrote,

"Our business is to give him
mind-stuff, and both quality and quantity are essential.
Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited
measure, but we
know where to procure it; for the best thought the world possesses is
stored in
books; we must open books to children, the best books; our own
concern is
abundant provision and orderly serving." 11

These questions, drawn from my study of the marks and results of living
books, may be helpful in evaluating the worth of a book:

1. Is the writing of excellent quality?
2. Does it contain living ideas and knowledge
suitable for the child?
3. Does the child react with delight caused by
the spark of ideas?
4. Does it make an impact on the reader's mind
(shown by his narrations)?

My definition of a living book has changed as I read more of Charlotte
Mason's writings. I encourage those of you reading this to study the
books and articles she left for us. You will glean much more
wisdom than I can share in this article. You will also find she
mentions many books that she deemed worthy. Read these books if you can
find them. They are shining examples of the kind of book you can call
"living."

For further reading, Leah Delsignore also posted a definition, based on quotes from the CM Series, about what makes a living book. Read that below.

3 "I do not hesitate to
say that the whole of a child's instruction should be conveyed through
the best literary medium available. His history books should be written
with the lucidity, concentration, personal conviction, directness, and
admirable simplicity which characterizes a work of literary calibre,"
Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of
Education, p. 339.

4 Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, p. 109.

5Ibid., pp. 88-90.

6Ibid., p. 256.

7Ibid., p. 253.

8 "The children must
enjoy the book. The ideas it holds must each make that sudden,
delightful impact upon their minds, must cause that intellectual stir,
which mark the inception of an idea," Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 178.

9 Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, p. 117.

10 "After the
experience of over a quarter of a century in selecting the lesson books
proper to children of all ages, we still make mistakes, and the next
examination paper discovers the error! Children cannot answer questions
set on the wrong book," Ibid.,
p. 248.

11Ibid., p. 26.

Recommended reading:

Mason, Charlotte. Vol. 5, Formation
of Character (Tyndale House Publishers, 1989).
Part III, Chapter I, "Concerning the Schoolboy
and Schoolgirl," especially the sections called Home Culture--Books,
Reading Aloud, The Book for the Evening Lecture, and Poetry as a Means
of Culture.

In the book In Memoriam,
written by various people who knew Charlotte Mason, the Hon. Mrs.
Franklin (who worked with CM in her PNEU schools) wrote to Charlotte
Mason's students, "All the books you use in the School are worth
while--even the books
used in IA" [first grade] "are
worth keeping. I expect you find when you have read
Scott and Kingsley, for example, you do not much care for rubbishy
books. This is a good thing because rubbish is badly written and spoils
our knowledge of English and also it does not give us a true picture of
life. Good books on the other hand help us to understand life, as great
writers make their characters act as human beings do act and so help us
to know something of life from different aspects."

Also recommended: Wendi Capehart's article about using literature to
build character, posted here.

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Christine has written a blog post that does a good job explaining what a living book is.

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If you have the Charlotte Mason Series, you might be interested in these quotes:

Chapter 15 (XV) of Volume 3: School Education.

The question resolves itself into--What manner of book will find its way with
upheaving effect into the mind of an intelligent boy or girl? We need not ask
what the girl or boy likes. She very often likes the twaddle of goody-goody
story books, he likes condiments, highly-spiced tales of adventure. We are
all capable of liking mental food of a poor quality and a titillating nature;
and possibly such food is good for us when our minds are in need of an
elbow-chair; but our spiritual life is sustained on other stuff, whether we be
boys or girls, men or women. By spiritual I mean that which is not corporeal;
and which, for convenience' sake, we call by various names--the life of thought,
the life of feeling, the life of the soul. page 168

And in Chapter 16 (XVI) of the same volume: How to Use School-Books

Principles on which to select School-Books

I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and
shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to
the reader. For example, I think we owe it to children to let them dig their
knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this is
for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured
into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as
it came in, and is rarely assimilated. I do not mean to say that the lecture
and the oral lesson are without their uses; but these uses are, to give impulse
and to order knowledge; and not to convey knowledge, or to afford us that part
of our education which comes of fit knowledge, fitly given.

Again, as I have already said, ideas must reach us directly from the mind of the
thinker, and it is chiefly by means of the books they have written that we get
into touch with the best minds. (page 177)

Marks of a Fit Book--A fit book is not necessarily a big book. Again, we need
not always insist that a book should be written by the original thinker. It
sometimes happens that second-rate minds have assimilated the matter in hand,
and are able to give out what is their own thought (only because they have
made it their own) in a form more suitable for our purposes than that of the
first-hand thinkers. (page 178).

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I get from this that living books:

-would not be goody-goody stories (twaddle), nor highly-spiced adventure stories (condiments).
-they would be books that feed the spirit in some way: thought, feeling, soul.
-children will need to "dig" a bit for their knowledge
-so the books would not be dumbed-down or a distillation of ideas
-the books would need to be written by a "thinker"
-not necessarily big, not necessarily the original thinker.

[Some 'living books' curricula have different criteria]. They want books that will engage
children, books that illuminate a historical period in time, books that they can
sell (currently in print). There might not be much about the historical
period, but enough to give a feeling of it. Many of the stories are good, but I
don't know how many you could say feed the spirit (a higher standard).

Leah

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This quote gives an idea of a non-living book -- what Charlotte Mason would have called "twaddle."

"Entirely pleased with themselves, they offered the child books that represented themselves, with all their attributes thrown in, their practical sense, their science, their hypocrisy, and their ankylosis. They offered him books that oozed boredom, that were likely to make him detest wisdom forever; silly books and empty books, pedantic books and heavy books; books that paralyzed the spontaneous forces of his soul; absurd books by tens and by hundreds, falling like hail on the springtime. The sooner they stifled a young heart, the sooner they effaced from a young spirit the sense of freedom and pleasure in play; the sooner they imposed limits, rules, and constraints, the more men were pleased with themselves for having raised childhood without delay to their own state of supreme perfection." -- Quote from "Books, Children and Men," by Paul Hazard, translated by Marguerite Mitchell.